Captain Crow, in a work published a short time since, relates the following as having occurred on a voyage to Memel:--"One morning during a cairn, when near the Hebrides, all hands were called up at three o'clock, to witness a battle between several of the fish called thrashers and some sword-fish on one side, and an enormous whale on the other. It was in the middle of summer, and the weather being clear, and the fish close to the vessel, we had a fine opportunity of witnessing the contest. As soon as the whale's back appeared above the water, the thrashers, springing several yards into the air, descended with great violence upon the object of their rancour, and inflicted upon him the most severe slaps with their tails, the sound of which resembled the reports of muskets fired at a distance. The sword-fish, in their turn, attacked the distressed whale, stabbing him from below;--and thus beset on all sides, and wounded, when the poor creature appeared, the water around him was dyed with blood. In this manner they continued tormenting and wounding him for many hours, until we lost sight of him; and I have no doubt they, in the end, accomplished his destruction." W.G.C. * * * * * NOTES OF A READER. * * * * * INFLUENCE OF THE MIND ON THE BODY. "Should the body sue the mind before a court of judicature, for damages, it would be found that the mind would prove to have been a ruinous tenant to its landlord."--_Plutarch_. [We abridge these interesting facts from "An Inquiry into the Influence of the Mind and Passions on the Body, in the production of Disease"--in No. 11 of the _London Medical and Surgical Journal_.[1] The whole paper is written in as clear, concise, and popular a style as the subject will allow, and its importance demands the attention of the reader; although we have not thought it to our purpose to follow the writer to the main object--or how these causes operate in the _production of disease_.] Descartes observes, that the soul is so much influenced by the constitution of our bodily organs, that if it were possible to find out a method of increasing our penetration, it should certainly be sought for in medicine, the connexion between the body and mind, is, in fact, so strong, that it is difficult to conceive how one of them should act, and the other not be sensible, in a greater or less degree, of that action. The organs of sense, by which we acquire all our ideas of external objects, when acted upon, convey the subject of thought to the nervous fibres of the brain; and while the mind is employed in thinking, the part of the brain is in a greater or less degree of motion; a large quantity of blood is transmitted to the brain, the action of the arteries become increased, and the nervous system sensibly affected.